Using ENGAGE to build self-regulation in New Entrant learners.

In 2020 my inquiry focus question will be:

Does the employment of the engage programme, improve the on task focus of New entrant learners and in turn progress in writing?

As a teacher in the New Entrant classroom my children come to school with varying levels of the skills needed to succeed in the classroom. Some of our learners come to school with little early childhood education, home languages other than english and behaviours which inhibit their ability to access the learning.

The engage programme was developed at the University of Otago to provide teachers and parents with a portfolio of games to use with students to help them build self-regulation skills.

Childhood self-regualtion strongly predicts adult physical health, substance dependence, personal finance and criminal offending outcomes (Dunedin longitudinal Study, 2011).

The Engage programme has games divided into three categories which target the different domains of self-regulation.

1. Emotional regulation and fluency, these games are developed to allow the children to practise managing their emotions, how to express themselves appropriately for the situation and build quality relationships.

2. Behavioural regulation, targets managing their body in space and time, the ability to be still, patient, delay gratification, and act in the way that suits situation.

3. Cognitive agility, these games attend to focus, sustained attention, problem solving, and mental flexibility to respond to changes in their environment.

By basing my inquiry on this programme I hope to show empirically that enriching my teaching practise with a focus on the holistic needs of the child, can make gains educationally and emotionally for my learners.

I believe that we do what we plan for and we get what we measure. So with the flexibility of the NE space I have been able to timetable three 10min engage games per day. One from each of the domains.

My baseline data will be a behavioural questionaire developed from the Engage qustionaire but refined by myself and another Year 1 teacher to delve deeper into the identified needs of our learners.

I will film learners working independently drawing pictures post writing modelling - this should be achievable as an independent task for all learners irrespective of literacy skills. Within a short time period of 4-5 minutes I will record the number of times targeted students are off task.

I will film students at intervals of 5 weeks and concurrently fill out the questionaire to capture differences in interpersonal and learning behaviours.

Improvement in self-regulation will be evidenced by decreasing number/length of time off task.  

Improvement in writing will be evidenced by work in writing books and gains into emotional and behavioural self regulation will be assessed by movements within the dimensions of the questionaire.